Darkness on the Edge of Town
by saoulbete
Summary: Everything fies baby, that's a fact. And sitting here on the dock of the bay, the wind blowing gently against your face carrying with it the sweet salty tang of the sea, you can almost recapture what it was like as a child, spending your summers down the shore. And you're glad that she is here with you.


A/N yeah yeah, warning for character death. This is what happens when one couples being in a shitty mood with listening to the Springsteen discog on shuffle. And as a huge fan of the Boss (seriously, I made one of the biggest and best decisions of my life thanks to Bruce) I wound up producing this, in the span of about an hour on the phone.

* * *

Your Uncle Sal has a house down the Jersey Shore. You always thought he was doing his part to preserve the stereotype of every Italian family having the relatives from Jersey. And two weeks a year, it was your summer vacation. Your parents would pile you and your brothers into a station wagon, and drive six hours down to the beach and boardwalk, sun and surf.

You used to pace the boardwalk as a teenager, spending your five dollars on nickle skeeball, drinking in the retro-futuristic, thirty year out of date archetecture, enjoying the sound of waves crashing against the shore. You took the derisive comments of 'Bennie' and 'Shoobie' in stride, never once denouncing your tourist status. Tommy used to get riled up at the comments made behind his back when he stared with wonder at the prizes hanging high above boardwalk games, eager and impatient to spend dollars at a time at games of chance rigged against him. He was always desperate to fit in, afraid to be the outsider, even on vacation, unlike you and your ability to let insults roll off of you like water off of down. The one commonality between you and your youngest brother was that the two of you were always eager to try for the brass ring rather than simply enjoying the ride

.

Frankie, ever the practical once, had cut out the middle men entirely, frittering his pocket money away in gift shops and pizza parlors.

If there is one thing you'll give to Jersey its the pizza. The north end may know how to make a slice, but it has nothing on the greasy goodness that was available for two weeks each summer. And you sit here on the dock of the bay listening to the waves crashing against the shore, an almost but not quite right recollection of what your youth had been. Similar yet oh so wrong. The music bleats weakly from your car stereo, a mishmash of various albums forming an odd sort of Greatest Hits compellation. Various songs plucked free from various parts of the Springsteen catalog.

If you're not in Jersey, you can bring the Jersey to you.

Part of you wishes to spend nothing more than the next few hours in the car driving far away from here. Tramps like you are born to run, after all, and everybody has a hungry heart. And running sounds awfully good right about now. Hop in the car and take off down 95, if you leave now, get out while you're still young you'll be able to watch the sun rise across the ocean. You never were a morning person, but for those two weeks a year of your youth you were. Just to watch the oranges and pinks and blues rise across the water. Paint the boardwalk in the golden light of dawn. Paint the ferris wheels and roller coasters in the soft early light. And even though you're sitting here, staring east across the ocean its not the same. You can hear this town crying in the dark. Its the lies that killed you, the truths that brought you down.

You've spent your whole life in Boston, and now, on the cusp of forty, you're wondering if maybe you didn't make a mistake. You're used to joking about the dirty water of the Charles being in your blood, of loving cold snowy New England winters and the duckboats when its nice. You laugh about how much you hate travelling out of state, while carefully avoiding comments about how you used to spend your summers. You wonder what is still here for you as you sit here, hiding in these shadows. If you ain't getting nowhere living in a dump like this. You're married to your job, and while you used to live for your work, its gotten to you these last few years.

You used to live to catch the bad guys. Now you live just to catch up. And when the realities of your job sink in, are forced home in your arms, you wonder if this is all really worth it. You have your medals and your trophies and yet, it feels as though you're lying here broken on the beach not half as proud as you'd once been. You're no hero, that's understood. But that's what happens when one of the few people you've let in, one of the few people who were close to you forces the stark cold reality of one of the two surities of life to become known in your hands, your shirt still stiff with where it had become soaked through.

Only two things in life are certain, and you've already gotten your tax return for the year.

The wind feels good across your face, carrying with it the sweet salty tang of the water. You don't know how long you've been sitting there, trying to make this feel like the two weeks a year you never wanted to end, where the hardest decision you ever had to make was whether you wanted pizza again, or if you'd rather gorge yourself on funnel cake and cotton candy, where the only consequences were sunburn and sugar and tilt-a-whirls being a volatile combination. Where the harsh facts of life weren't quite made known.

Everything dies baby, that's a fact.

The CD has played through at least twice, and you've only gotten up once to let your car idle for a play through, saving the battery. The night is dark and cold, and you pull your anger and your grief around you like a cloak, wrapping your arms around your knees, ignoring the bruised knuckles and what you're fairly sure is a boxer's fracture where you clocked Crowe in the jaw over a comment about a "big enough target." You can't quite face yourself alone again, and you ain't young anymore. And now, now you've lost one of the few people who you trust unwaveringly.

Its another three songs before you're aware of a presence at your side. Neither of you say anything. There's nothing to be said. She doesn't need how to explain how she's found you here. Instead you sit here with her, let her in, let her be your friend and guard your dreams and visions. She makes no comment on the cooling air, simply wraps a sweatshirt that she's brought around your shoulders. This is why you get along so well. She understands you. She won't turn you home again until you can face yourself again. Its hard to be a saint in the city, but somehow, she manages.

"You ever go to the Jersey Shore?" You ask, after an interminable time.

"Once. I did a six month post-graduate fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. I went to see what was so great about Atlantic City." She doesn't question why you ask, just offers a statement of fact.

"We used to go down every summer. Two weeks, my Uncle Sal's place. I miss it sometimes. Just - it was like the rest of the world didn't exist for those two weeks each year. It was just me and my brothers, and my cousins and their friends." She simply nods, does not comment. "Like, this is nice, so's Cape Cod, don't get me wrong, but its not the same. I just - I miss not caring about anything but what I'm going to spend all my tickets from Skee Ball on." There's a comforting arm wrapped around your waist, and you rest your head against a shoulder.

You love how willing she is to take on all your sorrow, all your fears and let your tears go tumbling into the sea. She is the rock that you rely on. The only other person that does not share your blood that you are willing to divulge your secrets to. And now, the only living one.

Janey, don't you lose heart.

"I want to be down there right now. Not in Boston. Fuck the weather, I never really liked the ocean itself. It was all about the boardwalk." You speak again, after another interminable silence. Again, you get nothing, just comforting silence as the tears start to fall. And if you weren't already sitting you'd fall to your knees hang your head and cry. But since you're already sitting, you simply bury your head against her neck. "I - the Boss, I mean, Uncle Sal reveres the guy. Y'know, I'm not even sure he's an uncle. Pretty sure he's Ma's cousin. Sal Lanzoni, up there with Francesco Rizzoli as 'bit parts from Goodfellas.' Be honest - Goodfellas verse the Godfather, which do you pick?"

"Neither. I pick that parody that we watched once. With Lloyd Bridges in it." You know exactly what she is talking about.

"The guy that plays the brother in that needs to be in more stuff. He does douchebag so well." She nods a half agreement, glad to find some topic to steer you from your grief. This is what you do. Usually its on her couch, laughing over your traumas. But that couch doesn't seem like enough. Not for this. This is - is requires the sea-spray on your face reminding you of what it was like to be young and free and innocent. You're surprised to find the cold glass of a bottle pressed into your hands, and you love this woman all the more for knowing exactly what you need. The sound of liquid hitting the ground jars you from your reverie and you look at her curiously in the dim light.

"Frankie had said it was a customary tradition-" and you can't help but laugh, tipping out a portion of your own beer, feeling something creep in beneath the pain and the loneliness. Only she can pour one out and make you laugh with her innocence at the gesture. "This was always my favorite song by Springsteen." Somehow, you think it should surprise you, that this ballad of how much the world had changed, and how hard it was to make it in a blue collar world these days, is her favorite. "It was one of the first songs I'd heard by him. One of the local radio stations had played the album straight through when it was released."

"WBCN." You supply. "My first real taste of the Boss that I can remember that I chose to listen to. I was like seven, and already looking forward to summer break, and god - I mean, I like a lot of his shit, but Born In the USA is just an objectively faultless album." The fact that the two of you had both listened to that same broadcast, well before your paths ever crossed, its just another sign of how well you two are made for each other.

You think that thought should jar you, unnerve you, do something, anything at all to you, but it does not.

Instead, it infuses you, takes away a little bit of the pain and the emptiness that has sunken into you over the last few hours. Ever since you sat there, dumbly on the ground as you watched the one man you respected most bleed out in your arms. One of the few people you had learned to trust. Had been able to trust. But you can't compete with murder incorperated. And perhaps she, the only other one you've let inside, is the one that you'll let tear all your walls down. And you know that her love will not let you down.

Instead you sit there, the sweet, salty smell of the sea filling your nostrils. This is not your childhhod summers. There are no amusement park piers. No funnel cakes or cotton candy. No sunburn. But this, shoulder to shoulder with her has you ready to take a leap of faith. You know that she knows you better than you know yourself. And while those summers may have long since been dead and gone, you wonder if its possible to recreate those magical two weeks. And you know if anyone can make you feel young, and carefree and innocent, unaware of the monsters and evils in the world, it is her. And you make a resolve then and there as you raise your bottle in a silent toast to the heavens to do so. He would have wanted that. To see you put the torment, the anger, the pain, and the fear behind you for at least a little while.

Everything dies baby, that's a fact.

But maybe everything that dies someday comes back.


End file.
